Replace You
by Reginald Kastle
Summary: I can't replace you. postcanon, slightly AU. [Kamishiro death.] {Yuma, Rio, IV, Ryouga.}


_{sharkbait, platonic icebait+ivrio}_

"_I said I'd never walk away, but I'm unable to stay__  
__I said I'd never leave this place, but I can't stay here__  
__To watch you fade and watch you change__  
__into someone I can't face__  
__I can't replace you."__  
__- Replace You – Silverstein_

* * *

When the final blow is delivered, he never expected this.

[Well, how could he? It was just a duel between friends; a _healing_ duel for everything they had lost – no Shark, don't you understand that I've lost just as much as you have?]

[Should have known better. Should have tried harder.]

The ring is all that remains. It's just a silver ring, though the scratches from years of abuse indicate otherwise; but it doesn't matter because it's the only thing left of what was once his best friend.

Hands touch his shoulders; various people that slipped form his fingers have picked themselves up and stitched themselves together to return to him – his final gift and _thank you for being such a good friend._

"Yuma." Her voice breaks through the barriers that slowly build around him – the only other person who was there, who understood his pain. Kotori's eyes darken; a distorted mirror of his own reflecting upon him and everything he has is used on making sure he doesn't cry but every second Kotori's eyes swim with tears, they begin to fill his too. "Yuma. What are you going to tell Rio?"

Reality smashes all around him.

_Remember, you're not the only person his life touched._

She's conversing with Durbe – eyes alight with a new hope, mirrored in Durbe's and it kills Yuma that he's got to pick up their shattered pieces and let them be destroyed again. Reflections of crimson connect and she breaks from the crowd towards him because if there's one person who knows where her second chance is, it's going to be him.

"Yuma!" The voice is so full of life and hope that he has to hold Kotori with his free hand to keep him standing. "Yuma! You did it; you beat them together just like I knew you would! Where's Ryouga?"

Tears never leave his eyes even though he so _desperately_ wants them to; his hands uncurl and shatter her world.

A soft thud echoes through shattered ears; a wail envelops their entire world.

_Now you understand what you did to him so many times._

* * *

"Merag, please."

"Go away, Durbe."

"You can't get rid of me that easily."

"Watch me."

"Merag, you're being ridiculous." The intruding voice is colder, fed up with her excuses and for once, she's glad Mizael decided to barge into her residence and take up post with Durbe because sure he has authority, but authority is wasted with Durbe's hesitance and she just ignores his pleas for her to listen, to understand that _we're all suffering too we can work together to get through this_. And sure, she gets it, she understands but she doesn't care, doesn't _want_to work with them anymore, and when Mizael gets sick of it, it's an excuse to let words fly.

"Mizael, you have no say in what is ridiculous or not." She snaps, spilling Durbe over the edge.

"Merag." Durbe's voice cuts through the tension, the sounds of glass colliding with wood slicing away her rebuttal. Food spills in waves, textures both pleasant and repulsive collide around them as her hands find her hips, crimson watching Durbe's exasperation unravel with a sigh. "Merag, enough. You are grieving, as we are I understand that but you must treat your comrades with respect." She opens her mouth to spit her reply, a reply he's heard so many times before that he cuts her off before she can even begin. "I had to go through life for three hundred years thinking that Nasch and you were dead so don't you dare say I don't understand!"

"Nasch. Do not lie to me." Disgusted, venomous words catch Durbe off-guard, but she's too far gone, too sick and tired to continue pretending. "Your thoughts were only with Nasch, as they are now. Pretend to yourself that you care for me all you want, pretend you're protecting me with your kind words and hesitancy to leave me alone, but _do not lie to me._"

Her words are like bullets, barrels one, two, three; each shot fires into everything he's ever believed and shatters it. She waits no longer to see the display before her, heels clicking against tiles until they fade away completely, replaced by a slamming door.

Durbe's body slumps into the chair, tension swallowing him as he reconsiders his thoughts. "I promised Nasch that if something were to happen to him that I would look after her and I'll stick by it just…" his voice peters away, slumping as a strong hand grips his shoulder reassuringly.

"Oh Mizael, what do I do?"

_Maybe she just needs to be left alone._

* * *

Their exchanges are loveless; kisses mean nothing for either side besides a mutual understanding, a mutual desire that every kiss, every embrace brings the hope that he'll round the corner and yell, scream and pry them apart –

[Anything to see him again.]

The gestures are useless, but they're comforting and their times together dissolve from aggressive mutual destruction to quiet, companioned solitude.

"So, when are you going to go crawling back?"

He asks the question every time she storms out, which is _often_ lately and it's been months since their return but the pain never healed for either of them so they're each other's solace when they storm out on their respective families. He knows the answer, but there's a part of him that thrives on the possibility of her finally deciding on _never_.

"Eventually. Might spend a day or two here, who knows."

Her hair falls around her, strands lacing delicately with his and she can almost try and pretend that her blue and his red morph into his purple but it's just not enough; the feeling is mutual and the end result is always their hair laying entangled as they lay opposite each other on the kitchen floor.

"Yeah, me too. Mihael went to see Yuma yesterday."

Silence falls between them, a bond of remembrance for a suffering comrade. "How is he?"

"Adjusting."

Suffering, but hiding it behind a smile. Surviving, just like the rest of them.

She pulls herself to her feet, red and blonde staining the floor in her place. His eyes watch her - that mysterious shade of red that followed Ryouga wherever he went and tied him to the earth - as she walks from his sight.

She leaves without another word, a habit she's sure she picked up from Ryouga, another reminder of what she's lost as the soft tinkle of clinging rings fills her ears as she wipes a hair from her face. Kicking the motorbike's engines into gear, she waits for a final wave before speeding to where she needs to go.

_Self-pity is disgusting, do not wallow in it. You were always better than that anyway._

* * *

Anger fills her in a way she's never experienced before. Her thoughts are of him – is this what he was like each time she was lost to him? That hope that he'll come back; waking each morning and remembering to only make a meal for one? – it's too much for her already no matter how many façades she throws up and its only been months since he's been gone, how will she ever survive the years that he's given her?

She wonders if he's waiting just beyond, watching just like she did all those lifetimes ago. Her foot itches the pedal harder as she thinks of that scowl, crossed arms and that _stupid_ way he would tap his foot as he criticized her; of what he would actually say if he saw her now.

_I understand._

* * *

She's nothing less than surprised when she answers the door to find her standing there.

"Hello, Rio, it's been a while." Akari tries her best to be polite because she knows _why_ it's been a while since she's seen Yuma's best friend's sister on their doorstep and it's nice to see her even though bags hang heavy around her eyes and she looks as if she hasn't eaten in a week. "Are you looking for Yuma? He's in his room."

She nods politely, a desperate attempt to keep herself under control as Akari lets her duck inside. She knows her way despite only being over a few times before, and before long, her body pokes through the attic hole, subdued anger flaring back to life.

"Oh, Shark's Sis I didn't know you were coming over." Yuma's voice breaks all over the place; he doesn't have the lying capabilities of Ryouga or IV or even herself and pain shatters through his broken façade.

"Why." The words slip from her mouth before she's realized, but it's time for this to happen, she _needs_ it to in order to move on.

"I-I didn't know what to do! I didn't have a counter for his trap and-"

"Anything!" she cries, hands flinging to his shoulders to keep her upright. She's nearing hysterics, but she's finally realized too late that bottling up her emotions was a bad idea and she can only hope that Yuma can survive this oncoming assault. "You could have done _anything_! Anything to make sure he didn't die!"

"What do you want from me?!" he cries, tears staining his cheeks – the first in days and he was doing _so well_ but she has _every right_ but it still _hurts_; they're still the nightmares that keep him awake at night and to see them in the light of day is a part of him that he never wants to feel again.

Moisture connects with his lips and he realizes she's _kissing_ him; tastes of tears, anger and regret fill him and he falls still, lets her recover the way she wants to. Sorrow mixes together, erupting as she finally breaks apart from him, tears balling at her eyelids as she wipes his cheeks clean.

"He always wanted to give you that."

_Finish my unfinished business._

* * *

Grief has done weird things to her, she's well aware; but as she nibbles on chocolate on Yuma's roof, she points out stars and watches his eyes light up with each constellation, and in return he shows her a few of his own. She's able to laugh again. It's not forced, not necessarily life-changing, but Yuma is good company and she misses people treating her like she's just another human being.

After a few weeks of stargazing trips and a smile she thought she'd never see again reappears, she flings the key into his waiting hands.

"IV and I have an apartment downtown. For when it gets too much. You're free to come by any time you like. We're in this together, until the end."

_An unexplainable power like the sun._

_Remember, you're never alone. _


End file.
